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Strategic Decision-makingabout Hardware and Software

IT Infrastructure

Things to Know

Assess contemporary hardware and software trends.

Revisit Architecture & Infrastructure

Evaluate the principal issues in managing hardware and software technology.

Explore the types of strategic decisions needed to ensure implementation a success.

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Infrastructure Components

Computer hardware: HW

Computer software: SW

Data management technology

Networking and telecommunications technology: blocks of code

Technology services

3IT Infrastructure: Computer Hardware

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The Size of IT all!

Bit : 0 /1, yes/no, on/ off

Byte – 8 bits

Kilobyte (103 bytes)

Megabyte (106 bytes)

Gigabyte (109 bytes)

Terabyte (1012 bytes)

Petabyte (1015 bytes)

Exabyte (1018 bytes): Human genome (and the brain)…all about science

Zettabyte (1021 bytes)

Yottabyte (1024 bytes)

Brontobyte (1027 bytes)

Geopbyte (1030 bytes)

Types of Computers

Computers come in different sizes with varying capabilities for processing information

• Measured in FLOPS (FLoating point OPerations per Second)…how fast it process commands per second.

Personal computer (PC) 32-64 instructing per seconds (dual processors can handle more than that)

Workstation: about 100X faster….but with specific purpose. May be PMS. Statler doesn’t have PCs anymore: it’s a keyboard, a screen and all units point to one place

Midrange computers: Servers and minicomputers: Multiple access use. Most servers are these

Mainframe: in corporations.

Supercomputer: IBM. “A larger Mainframe” Mainframes working in unison

5IT Infrastructure: Computer Hardware

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The Need For Speed!

The dominant chip architecture is multicore processors. Dual-core processors are also widely found in the TOP500 (the top 500 big computers).

IBM and HP have sold the majority of the systems in the TOP500 (over 50% in the USA).

The IBM BlueGene/L system claimed the Number 1 spot, which had been in first place since November 2004.

Intel processors were used in a whopping 70% of the 2007 systems. AMD Opterons came in second place, while IBM POWER chips were third.

Speed doubled! The 2007 winner achieved a Linpack benchmark performance of 478.2 teraFLOPS (TFLOPS), as compared to 280 TFLOPS just six months earlier, before a major upgrade. Top speed now is 596 TFLOPS

In 2008, the Cell/AMD Opteron-based IBM Roadrunner at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) was announced as the fastest operational supercomputer, with a sustained processing rate of 1.026 PFLOPS. It uses 2 different architectures (hybrid system).

But in June of 2010 ….

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Cray’s Jaguar: June 2010

1.75 PFLOPS or 1.75 Quadrillion operations per

second!

Contemporary Hardware Trends

Integration of computing and telecommunications platforms• Edge computing

• Application processing load balancing capacity to corporate web servers.

• Load balancing: spread work between many computers or other resources get optimal efficiency

• Autonomic computing• Becoming smarter: configure themselves to changing

conditions and are self healing in the event of failure. • If I didn’t save, it comes back on• Updates

8IT Infrastructure: Computer Hardware

Edge Computing

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The Major Types of Software

10IT Infrastructure: Computer Software

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Summing Things up

• Sniper Twins at work rapping about computers: all Mac computers

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNXe_3gVz6I

Operating System Software

The software that :manages and controls the computer’s activities

Unix• Mainframe computers• But the core of PC and Mac is based off of

PC operating systems and graphical user interfaces• GUIs

• Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7

• Windows & Home Server 2003/2007

Macs OS

• X

• Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard

Open-source• Linux

12IT Infrastructure: Computer Software

The Corporate World Migrates to Open-Source

Review the Focus on Technology:

• What problems do Linux and other open-source software help companies address?

• How does open-source software help?

• What issues and challenges does deploying open-source software raise?

• What can be done to address these issues?

• Describe what you think is a sound strategy for deploying Linux and other open-source components at this stage of their evolution.

13IT Infrastructure: Computer Software

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Application Software and Desktop Productivity Tools

Application programming languages for business

• Fourth-generation languages

Software packages and desktop productivity tools

• Integrated software packages and software suites

• Word processing software• Spreadsheets• Data management software• Presentation graphics• E-mail software

• Web browsers

• Access the web• JAVA: web apps, moving away from CSS

• Groupware

• Google Apps• Microsoft Live

IT Infrastructure: Computer Software

GroupWare workflow

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Workgroup (Groupware)Software that integrates work on a single project by several concurrent users at separated workstations.

WorkflowThe automatic routing of documents to the users responsible for working on them. Workflow is concerned with providing the information required to support each step of the business cycle.

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UPS World Port: main air shipping terminal

It’s a workflow Process

300,000 packages per hour

Process

• In and out in less than 15 minutes

• Deliverer scans the package when they drop it off.

Entail to make this happen

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NETWORKS

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Case: Sonic Corporation

Visit Sonic’s Web site at www.sonicdrivein.com

How does Sonic’s Web site enhance its business?

• Using consumer info

Who is the target audience of the Web site? Is there more than one target audience?

• They can target you based on who you are and where you come from

What would make the Web site better?

How does Sonic’s Web site compare to the sites of its competitors, such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, etc.?

Types of Computer Networks

Client/Server Computing

Web Server

Application Server

Multi-tiered (N-tier) client/server architectures

Grid Computing

Cloud Computing

19IT Infrastructure: Computer Hardware

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Client/Server Computing

IT Infrastructure: Computer Hardware

client/server computing - computer processing is split between client machines and server machines linked by a network. Users interface with the client machines.

Web Server

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A program that processes document requests; it also has a database, which is a repository of data and content.

Application Server

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A computer that executes commands requested by a Web server to fetch data from databases. Also known as app server.

Multi-tiered Client/Server (N-tier)

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Multitiered (N-tier) client/server architectures – a number (n) servers work on a business process, while another number of servers work on another process.

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Virtual Machines (VMs)

Virtual Machine - A software program that emulates a hardware (e.g. a server)

Workstation

Mainframe with VM Software

Virtual Server 1

Virtual Server 2

Virtual Server 3

Grid Computing

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Grid Computing - the concurrent application of the processing and data storage resources of many computers in a network to a single problem.

Cloud Computing

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Cloud Computing

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Cloud Computing - Running applications within a network server or downloading the software from the network each time it is used.

Servers

Internet/Cloud

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Data Storage Formats

& Enterprise Services &

Integration

Data Storage & Technology Services

Input , Storage,and Output Technology

Input devices gather data and convert them into electronic form

Secondary storage technology• Magnetic disk: hard drives, USB flash drives, RAID• Optical disks: CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD• Magnetic tape• Storage Area Networks (SANs)

Output devices display data after they have been processed

Batch and online processing (Grid Computing)

29IT Infrastructure: Computer Hardware

SANs: Storage Area Network

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RAID:Redundant Array of Independent Disks

Software for the Web: Java and HTML

Hypertext markup language (HTML)• Page description language for specifying how

elements are placed on a Web page and for creating links to other pages and objects

Java• Operating system-independent, processor-

independent, object-oriented programming language

• Leading interactive programming environment for the Web

31IT Infrastructure: Computer Software

Software for Enterprise Integration

Legacy systems: replace or integrate? • Middleware• Enterprise application integration (EAI) software

Web services and service-oriented architecture:• XML - EXtensible Markup Language• SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol• WSDL - Web Services Description Language• UDDI - Universal Description, Discovery and Integration• SOA - Service Oriented Architecture (KNOW!)

32IT Infrastructure: Computer Software

Enterprise Application Integration

Translating data and commands from the format of one application into the format of another.

Middleware: Software that serves as an intermediary between systems software and an application.

Interface: The point of interaction or communication between a computer and any other entity, such as a printer or human operator. (Translation software…my Word software can save in different formats)

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Where Middleware Fits …

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) Versus Traditional Integration

35IT Infrastructure: Computer Software

EAI Traditional

Service - Oriented Architecture (SOA)

The modularization of business functions for greater flexibility and reusability.

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THE WORLD WIDE WEB

A Brief Look

Web 1.0

Read‐only Web ‐ Static Web Pages• Echoed the books and libraries of the past

User Interaction was Controlled• Traditional publishing / broadcast model• Limited to e‐mail, guestbooks, forums• Search was limited to old ways of organizing

• Keywords & Directories

Lack of Standards Led to Proprietary Browser Wars

Web Applications were Brittle• Interface + Content (Data) + Program Logic

From: Robert Cole/Michael Robinson, HITEC 2009 38

Software Trends: Web 2.0

Web 2.0: perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services• Social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies

The term became popular following the first O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004.

Does not refer to an update to any technical specifications to the WWW• Changes in the ways software developers and end-

users use the web.

39IT Infrastructure: Computer Software

Web 2.0 (cont’d)

The Network is the Platform is the Web

• The Read/Write Web ‐ The Social Web • Rich Content, extensive user participation

User Interaction

• Leverage collective intelligence, communication & collaboration• Openness, transparency & respect

Search

• Contextual (Bing / Wolfram|Alpha)• Users organizing content with tagging

From: Robert Cole/Michael Robinson , HITEC 2009 40

Software Trends: Mashups, Web 2.0, and Distributed Software Applications

Mashups: application that seamlessly combines content from more than one source• depends on high-speed data networks, universal

communication standards, and open-source code

Web mashups combine two or more online applications to create a new application or service that provides more value than the original pieces

Distributed Computing: The use of multiple network-connected computers for solving a problem or for information processing • Google: an extreme example of distributed computing

41IT Infrastructure: Computer Software

The Social Side of Web 2.0

Social Media Only One Aspect of Web 2.0

Five Eras of the Social Web (Jeremiah Owyang):

Era of Social Relationships (1995‐2007)• People connect to others and share

Era of Social Functionality (2007‐2012)• Social networks become like operating system

Era of Social Colonization  (2009  ‐ 2011)• Every experience can now be social

Era of Social Context (2010‐2012)• Personalized and accurate content

Era of Social Commerce  (2011-2013)• Communities define future products and

services

From: Robert Cole/Michael Robinson , HITEC 2009 42

Web 2.0 Success Characteristics

Services, not packaged software, with cost‐effective scalability

• Scalability - Property of a system that can accommodate changes in transaction volume without major changes to the system.

Control over unique, hard‐to‐recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them

Trusting users as co‐developers

Harnessing collective intelligence

Leveraging the retail through customer self‐service

Lightweight user  interfaces, development models, AND  business models

From: Robert Cole/Michael Robinson , HITEC 2009 43

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WHAT’S COMING NEXT?

Well IT’s Only Logical …

Web 3.0

The  Semantic  Web - Systems  Read  and  Categorize  the  Web

Personalization - Web  Contextualized  Based  on  Individual

Artificial  Intelligence - Meaning  Extracted  from  Web  Interactions

Dynamic  Expert  Communities - Leverages  Collective  Intelligence

Mobility - Everything,  Everywhere,  All  the  Time

The  Logical  Outcome? Relevant,  Real‐time  Search,  Behavioral  Targeting

From: Robert Cole/Michael Robinson , HITEC 2009 45

Web 3.0 - Knowledge

RDF  ‐ Resource  Definition  Format

• Need  to  Describe, Capture Knowledge & Define Relationships between “Stuff”

Defines Semantic Web Relationships Through  MetaData

• RDF  Triplet  Incorporates

• Property  – Lecture • Object  – Preston Clark• RDFS  (RDF  Schema) - Describes  Properties  &  Classes  of  RDF’s

OWL  (Web  Ontology  Language) - Unified Language on Web

• Vocabulary  Describes  Characteristics  of  RDF  Properties

• Relationships  between  RDF  Classes

From: Robert Cole/Michael Robinson , HITEC 2009 46

Web Summary

From: Robert Cole/Michael Robinson , HITEC 2009 47

Managing Hardware and Software Technology

Capacity planning and scalability

Total cost of ownership (TCO) of technology assets

Using technology service providers• Outsourcing• On-demand computing• Application service providers (ASPs)

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Important issues faced by IT Managers

Business Continuity Planning (BCP)

BCP is an approved set of preparations and sufficient procedures for responding to a range of disaster events, such as:

• Planning stage – alternative business recovery operating strategies are determined

• Emergency Response Procedures – designed to prevent/limit injury to personnel on site, damage to structures/equipment and the degradation if vital business functions

• Employee Awareness and Training Programs – must be well communicated throughout the organization

49Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Manager’s Role :Strategy to IS Implementation

Business Strategy drives architecture.

Managers must understand how to plan IT to realize business goals.

Logical framework is used to guide the translation from business strategy to IS design.

Know the state of existing architecture and infrastructure when translating strategy into architecture and then infrastructure.

A business continuity plan is an approved set of preparations and sufficient procedures for responding to a disaster event.

It is becoming more important that business managers effectively translate business strategy into IT infrastructure.

50Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.